Hockey goalies are different breed

There might not be a more bizarre position in sports than hockey goaltender, the equivalent of a human bull's-eye.

The great Jacques Plante summed it up this way:

"Imagine sitting at your desk. You make a mistake. A red light goes on behind you, a siren starts sounding and 18,000 people are yelling at you. That's what it's like to be a goaltender."

It is a thankless task. There are fewer goaltenders (33) in the Hockey Hall of Fame than any other position, and none has been inducted since Billy Smith in 1993.

Johnny Bower, one of the honored 33, noted the inequity but pointed out a mathematical reason for it. "The odds are against us," he said. "There are 18 skaters and two goalies on a team. Figure it out."

Netminders are a breed apart. Montreal's Bill Durnan, another Hall of Famer who won the Vezina Trophy six times in seven seasons, was convinced that he should stop every shot.

He once had four consecutive shutouts and a streak of 309 minutes, 21 seconds without giving up a goal. Eventually, the pressure of trying to be perfect every night caught up with him and he asked out.

The Canadiens replaced Durnan in the midst of the 1950 playoffs with Gerry McNeil. Before a pivotal game, the two goalies went off for a private meeting. When coach Dick Irvin found them, Durnan and McNeil were sitting together, weeping. Durnan never played another game.

That story and many others are in a new book "Without Fear," which ranks the 50 greatest goalies, with commentary on each from Bower. The top five are Patrick Roy, Terry Sawchuk, Glenn Hall, Plante and Dominik Hasek. Bower is No. 18.

Plante, of course, was the king of eccentricity. When he traveled to Toronto, he refused to stay in the team hotel, the Royal York, convinced that the cleanser used there brought on attacks of asthma.

Traded to New York, he loved to explore the city, particularly its college campuses. He often walked around them to kill time, explaining, "I absorb the knowledge."

When he enjoyed a goaltending renaissance with the Rangers, he glowed. "I am old and slow," he said. "I cannot get out of the way of the puck."

It was Plante who introduced the mask to modern goaltending after being cut badly by a shot to the face. Coach Toe Blake tried to discourage him, sure that the mask would make his goalie puck-shy. Plante, who had taken enough pucks to the face, prevailed.

Bower, a throwback goalie from hockey's six-team era, played barefaced for most of his career and had the stitches to prove it.

"Most of my injuries came in practice," he said. "One time, Allan Stanley hit me. Stanley couldn't break a paper bag with his shot. He said, 'Let's go one more round.' I froze on a shot and he caught me over the eye. That was nine stitches."

In those days, the goalies wore stitches like badges of honor. When Hall of Famer Gerry Cheevers put on a mask, he decorated it with drawings of the stitches it saved him.

Back then, teams saved a salary by carrying one goalie, with the home team obligated to provide a backup in case of injury.

"They'd bring in a kid from the crowd, pay him $25 or $50," Bower said. "I guess it was better than putting a chair in the net. When the kid began to look better than me, I started worrying a little."

Bower was a late bloomer. He spent a hockey lifetime in the minor leagues before getting a shot with Toronto at age 34. There would be four Stanley Cups, the last one in 1967, when he was 43. When he retired three years later, he was the oldest goalie ever to play in the NHL.

"The game has changed a lot," he said. "I liked my game better. It was a good defensive game. Today, it's wide open hockey, everybody rushing up the ice. We averaged 20, maybe 22 shots. Today they get 40, 45."

Bower pleads innocent on the rankings in "Without Fear." Would they be different if he were making the list?